Storify was designed to help the voices online that matter, and to make the web tell a story. It was co-founded by Burt Herman and Xavier Damman. Storify has announced that it is reaching its “End-of-Life”, and will no longer be available after May 16, 2018.

As of December 12, 2017, no new Storify.com accounts can be created. It will no longer be possible to submit requests for bug fixes to either Storify or Zendesk. No new or existing bug fixes will be addressed.

Existing Storify customers will be able to continue using all capabilities of the service until May 16, 2018 – except for the ability to create new stories (which will only be available for a limited time.) That ability will end on May 1, 2018. Storify recommends that existing Storify users export any content that they would like to keep by May 16, 2018, by using the export functionality in Storify.

EVE Online has created a skin to honor CCP Blaze, one of the Senior Software Engineers with their Audio & Graphics team. He passed away suddenly on November 14, 2017, and is survived by his fiancée and one year old daughter.

EVE Online will be hosting their own internal fundraiser and will be supporting his family, friends, and co-workers as best as possible. They also are honoring CCP Blaze by releasing a new skin. It is called the “Blaze” Squadron Skin Set. All profits from this set will be donated directly to the fiancée and daughter of CCP Blaze on behalf of the EVE Online Community.

The special skin will only be available as a one-off between now and December 19, 2017. After that, it will be retired from the New Eden Store, and will never be sold again.

It will be available for the following hulls, in a bundle for 495 PLEX:

Barghest

Cerberus

Hurricane

Ishtar

Oracle

It will also be made available separately for the Armageddon, CCP Blaze’s favorite ship, for 110 PLEX. EVE Online wrote a special description for the “Blaze” Squadron SKIN. It honors CCP Blaze and writes “Blaze” into backstory as an immortalized part of New Eden’s history.

Twitch announced that they have launched their Twitch Skill on all Alexa-enabled devices in the United States. This Skill enables people to control Twitch with their voice.

The Twitch Skill lets you play your favorite channels, discover new streamers, get notified when your favorite channels start streaming, and get a reminder when your Twitch Prime subscription is available to use.

You will need to enable the notifications permission for the Twitch Skill in your Alexa app to start receiving notifications. Alexa will notify you anytime a followed channel that you have notifications enabled for starts broadcasting.

Other features include:

If you’ve linked your Twitch account, say “Alexa, ask Twitch for followed channels” or “Alexa, tell Twitch to show me channels I follow.”

Discover a new channel for your favorite game or Twitch category by asking Alexa to show you who is playing a specific video game. You can also ask Alexa to suggest an IRL channel.

You can ask Alexa to show you the Twitch streams that are popular.

You can ask Alexa to suggest a game for you. Alexa will read you a list of popular games and you can select one to hear the most popular channels for it.

You can play online against other players in Street Fighter II: Hyper Fighting, Super Street Fighter II: Turbo, Street Fighter Alpha 3, and Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike. Players can choose Ranked or Casual matches. Up to four players can join a lobby where they can play against the CPU while waiting for their next match. Each of these titles will have their own global leaderboard.

The collection has a Museum of concept art, pitch documents, and little-know facts behind each game’s release. You can view an interactive timeline and browse all 30 years of Street Fighter games. There are character bios that give you more information about your favorite characters. If you choose to play in single player mode, you can save your progress and resume at any time for any of the 12 titles.

Microsoft released an adorable ad called 3D Holiday. It shows a series of cute creatures that need some love, and who receive it from other creatures. The ad features Microsoft’s Paint 3D, and also features Remix 3D.

When we are inclusive and celebrate our differences we can make the world a better place. 3D Holiday tells the story of a young girl who goes on an imaginary adventure through space where she and “Gabe the Yeti” encounter various characters who need a little love and support, culminating in a celebration for all.

The Microsoft website shows all of the characters that were in the ad. There is an image of each one, the character’s name, and a description of the character’s personality. In addition to the video of the holiday ad, there are two videos that are intended to be Paint 3D tutorials that people can learn from.

People can use Paint 3D to create objects from scratch or to modify a creation from the Remix 3D catalog. You can search Remix 3D for items, characters, and more, and use them in your own creations. It is also possible to take Remix 3D items and change the colors and textures, to add stickers, or to turn a 2D picture into a 3D scene.

The Game Awards recognizes and upholds creative and technical excellence in the global video game industry. Their Awards ceremony is held annually in December. It celebrates both game creators and game players, and gives fans a preview of games set to be released in the future.

I have some significant concerns on the Bitcoin Chaos that is happening at this point and want to make sure that the Ohana understand a little more on what they are getting into so that you do not have regret later. It can be an emotional rollercoaster and folks can get carried away in buying and selling and hitting trading limits along with all the technical glitches going on. Just be careful with your money and be prepared to lose it all.

Blubrry podcast hosting company has launched Podcast Mirror a new feed replicating service that is a FeedBurner replacement for Podcasters. This is the first service of it’s kind that has launched specifically for podcasters since the introduction of FeedBurner so many years ago.

There are some significant differences in the service as Podcast Mirror does as it says mirrors the original podcast feed providing a host of features for podcasters. One of the biggest is 99.999% uptime on a high-performance network that guarantees incredibly fast feed load times. Podcast Mirror meets all the requirements required for iTunes and other podcast applications such as: Apple’s official iOS app, Google Play Music, Stitcher, TuneIn, and more.

Podcast Mirror provides complete compatibility, security which allows podcasters who are looking to provide a better experience for their listeners by providing a formatted feed that does not present all of the XML code that often confuses a listener. All feeds are secure meaning they are served as https and future proofs the feed for changing times.

The best thing is podcasters retain their brand and drive subscriptions with the integrated subscribe tools. As in the image below you can see what is presented to a listener who may load a Podcast Mirror feed in their browser.

Moving from the earthly familiarity of last year’s Greenery, Pantone have announced Ultra Violet as the 2018 Colour of the Year. Also known as 18-3838, Ultra Violet is complex and contemplative, suggesting the mysteries of the cosmos, the intrigue of what lies ahead, and the discoveries beyond where we are now. The vast and limitless night sky is symbolic of what is possible and continues to inspire the desire to pursue a world beyond our own.

“We are living in a time that requires inventiveness and imagination. It is this kind of creative inspiration that is indigenous to PANTONE 18-3838 Ultra Violet, a blue-based purple that takes our awareness and potential to a higher level,” said Leatrice Eiseman, Executive Director of the Pantone Color Institute. “From exploring new technologies and the greater galaxy, to artistic expression and spiritual reflection, intuitive Ultra Violet lights the way to what is yet to come.”

Celebrating the lives of Bowie and Prince, the colour purple has long been symbolic of counterculture, unconventionality, and artistic brilliance. These musical icons brought shades of Ultra Violet to the forefront of western pop culture as personal expressions of individuality. Nuanced and full of emotion, the depth of Ultra Violet symbolizes experimentation and non-conformity, spurring individuals to imagine their unique mark on the world, and push boundaries through creative outlets.

The full press release is here and discusses Ultra Violet in the context of everything from fashion to food.

If you are a designer, all the colour standards are on Pantone’s site, including some downloads for Adobe products. The codes for Ultra Violet Pantone 18-3838 are

sRGB: 95 75 139

CMYK: 71 73 7 8

HTML: 5F4B8B

I imagine this will be a popular colour with young girls! Look out for more purple in 2018.

Steam announced that it will no longer support Bitcoin as a payment method. This news is going to affect players who were purchasing Steam games with Bitcoin, but doesn’t appear to change things for those using other methods of payment.

Steam says it will no longer support Bitcoin as a payment method on their platform due to high fees and volatility in the value of Bitcoin. In the announcement, Steam points out: “Historically, the value of Bitcoin has been volatile, but the degree of volatility has become extreme in the last few months, losing as much as 25% in value over a period of days.”

This creates a problem for customers trying to purchase games with Bitcoin. When checking out on Steam, a customer will transfer x amount of Bitcoin for the cost of the game, plus y amount of Bitcoin to cover the transaction fee charged by the Bitcoin network. The value of Bitcoin is only guaranteed for a certain period of time, so if the transaction doesn’t complete within that window of time, then the amount of Bitcoin needed to cover the transaction can change. The amount it can change has been increasing recently to a point where it can be significantly different.

Steam points out that when that situation happens, they either have to refund original payment to the user to or ask the user to transfer more funds to cover the remaining balance. The user gets hit with a Bitcoin transaction fee either way. As a result, Steam says it has become untenable to support Bitcoin as a payment option.